phase out all party lines in North Carolina. One of the last manual telephone exchanges with party lines in Australia was closed down in 1986 in the township of Collarenebri, where most town residents had a telephone number of only three digits. To make a call outside the exchange area it was necessary to call the exchange to place a call. For rural residents, many were on a single telephone line identified by a number and a property name, such as "Gundabluie 1". Each party on that single line was identified by a letter, and the ringing pattern for that party would consist of the corresponding letter in Morse code. This distinctive ring would alert all parties on the line who the call was for. In 1989, the Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company replaced party lines with individual lines in Talcott, West Virginia, a rural area which once had as many as sixteen subscribers on one line. Universities also phased out the systems, which were once common in student dormitories. Illinois State University terminated its last party line in 1990. Woodbury, Connecticut's independent telephone company abandoned its last party lines in 1991, the last in that state to do so. The same year, Southwestern Bell announced its intentions to replace all of its party lines in Texas with individual line service by November 1994, and the company's last party line finally shut down in 1996. Pacific Bell phased out most of its party lines by 1997, and the last ones operating in Nevada shut down in 2001. As of 2002, SBC Ameritech's only operating party lines were located in Michigan. USA Today reported in 2000 that over 5,000 party lines still existed in the United States, but the majority of them were only connected to one telephone, and therefore appeared like individual telephone service at cheaper rates. Selective ringing To signal specific subscribers on party lines selectively, telephone operating companies implemented various signaling systems. The earliest selective system was the code ringing system, in which each telephone subscriber was assigned a specific ringing cadence, (not to be confused with modern ring tones). Although various systems were implemented, one that limited the number of coded rings but established a uniform and readily understood format, was to first give the subscriber number as individual digits, which could be from one to four digits long per exchange, separated by the instructional word "ring"